2008 Primaries Thread

Gavin OTM - I seem to recall a lot of "Republicans don't like Bush either!" fervor in 2004.

ThisI won't vote for Hillary if she gets the nom shit is crazy, hold your nose and pull the lever

I'll do no such thing. If Hillary gets the nom, she won't need my vote to win my district. And I don't want to be complicit in her getting elected.

we've been over this.

Her active support for the war in Iraq (beyond her vote on the resolution) is a significant part of my strong distaste for Clinton.

I do not believe that she has a good explanation for her support for the war in Iraq.

I agree, and her explanations of her vote strike me as very GWB. This is one of the main reasons why I will be very uncomfortable with her as the Democratic nominee.

Ed, that's not true at all. Many of us live in states where our general election vote doesn't matter. Shakey's in Solid Blue territory, I'm in Solid Red territory - I think John J is in Solid Blue territory.

If one of us chooses to not vote for Hillary on principle, it wouldn't change a thing.

...will vote for Hillary if she is the D nominee; I just won't do it as happily as I would if the nominee were Obama. The bottom line for me is the Supreme Court

Seconded

I seem to recall a lot of "Republicans don't like Bush either!" fervor in 2004.

? I don't remember that at all!

I would definitely vote for Hillary if she's the nominee, but I'd be a lot more excited if it were Obama, and I agree with Milo that a Clinton vs. McCain contest would be harder.

ILX'ors are snippy and hyper-aggressive, but I doubt they're opposed to HRC on gender-bias grounds.

But I think the tricky thing about talking about gender bias & HRC in general is that people don't have issues with her because she's a woman, the issues they have against her often get mentally processed and expressed differently because she's a woman. This is hard to get around, especially because it's not often intentional.

I think that a lot of older women are sincerely invested in and excited about the possibility of the first woman President, and that there are men who would share in their investment/excitement if she were the nominee, but I can't help questioning how many of them are really just not that comfortable letting the cool, young black guy be their voice.

As for pet causes -- while I don't expect Obama to champion gay rights significantly over any other candidate, he's the only Dem candidate to mention queer folk in his stump speeches. That, and the Clinton's abandonment of gay rights after the '92 election was pretty distasteful.

Has anyone read anything about the possibility of a right-wing third-party candidate emerging, possibly one based on anti-immigrant sentiment (e.g., Lou Dobbs)?

That might be one very effective way of undercutting McCain's GOP support (I'm not sure what impact it would have on the Democratic base, if any).

That is the nature of democracy, especially in a system like either of the ones in the US or the UK, but the alternative is being complicit in the other guy getting elected.

xpost

I don't think you should feel obligated to vote for Clinton just to keep a Republican out of office. That kind of goes against what voting is supposed to mean.

I do think that if you don't vote for anyone at all you're a fucking idiot, though.

Shakey, in the runup to the 2004 election, the most vocal Bush detractors in my office were Republicans. They all voted for Bush again.

I can't help questioning how many of them are really just not that comfortable letting the cool, young black guy be their voice.

Really? Are we going to get into this shit again?

Can't we just assume that everyone subconsciously distrusts everyone who isn't like them and move on?

Anybody "leaving the country" when McCain/Huckabee sweeps the Midwest and trounces Hillary in the GE?

Frank Rich has had a theme in his Sunday op-eds that there is no way Hillary can beat McCain in the main election, so Democrats are idiots not to unite behind Obama.

"I'll do no such thing. If Hillary gets the nom, she won't need my vote to win my district. And I don't want to be complicit in her getting elected."

I think I agree with this. I live in NJ which will go to whoever the Democrat is. I can't vote for Hillary, and won't vote for any of the Republicans. I'd be safe to sit this out if Obama isn't the nominee. I'd quit my job and volunteer for him if he is, though.

I agree, and her explanations of her vote strike me as very GWB.

They were both foreign policy newbs with limited grasp of modern military strategy and tactics? I can forgive people being wrong, but I'm less likely if they don't acknowldege what's right in front of them, as GWB has done, either from political expediency or just ideological rigidity and I worry that a candidate, like Obama, might be just as myopic only ideologically rigid in his pacifism. POTUS is a hard job and no matter how much history you read or don't, at some point you have to realize that you're basically winging it.

But I think the tricky thing about talking about gender bias & HRC in general is that people don't have issues with her because she's a woman, the issues they have against her often get mentally processed and expressed differently because she's a woman. This is hard to get around, especially because it's not often intentional.

I realize it's hard for anyone to evaluate themselves on issues like this, but I don't think I am biased against HRC in any way because of her gender, and if I see her actions through a gender-impacted lens, I at least think I'm aware of it. I prefer Obama because (a) I prefer his position on the use for American military power, (b) his foreign policy advisory team (made up of people who opposed the Iraq War from the start), (c) I think he's a much better GE candidate than HRC (because of her very high negative ratings). Maybe there's some "gender processing" going on in my head, but given my reasons for preferring Obama, I don't think so.

Has anyone read anything about the possibility of a right-wing third-party candidate emerging, possibly one based on anti-immigrant sentiment (e.g., Lou Dobbs)?

That might be one very effective way of undercutting McCain's GOP support (I'm not sure what impact it would have on the Democratic base, if any).

-- Daniel, Esq., Wednesday, February 6, 2008 10:15 PM

I hear tell that Ron Paul is saving up all that money for a third-party run.

Michael White OTM, like ANYONE is really prepared to inherit the steaming and hictoric pile of shit that will be dumped on the next president on "Day One"

Paul/Dobbs '08

The main issue in this election is, or should be, Iraq, and HRC is complicit in that fiasco.

A large part of why I prefer Obama to Hillary lies in the fact that he's an Ivy League-educated, relatively laid-back, liberal-leaning black man. Like me.

I hear tell that Ron Paul is saving up all that money for a third-party run.

But he isn't hardline anti-immigrant (openly), is he? I thought -- ostensibly, at least -- he was libertarian and isolationist.

I don't think Paul will run. He got away with it before because he was a non-entity (the party left him and his district alone). If he Naders them this time, they'll pour money into a primary challenge in two years.

A large part of why I prefer Obama to Hillary lies in the fact that he's an Ivy League-educated, relatively laid-back, liberal-leaning black man. Like me.

Easy there, college guy.

lol

The "Clinton wins Missouri" story wasn't the only oopsie for the Associated Press on Tuesday night. Within an hour of making that mistake, the AP reported that Led Zeppelin was going to headline the Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival, which will be held June 13-15 in Manchester, Tenn. Seventeen minutes later, that story was retracted.

wow, i just realized i'll be coming back to the us, unemployed, 2 months before the election. if i could somehow get money to live on, i could volunteer for the campaign. i'll probably get a job instead though.

daniel - i wasn't directing that toward you, i haven't been following ilx that closely. it was more of a general comment. i have trouble figuring out how gender affects my reactions to hillary myself, which i only realized recently.

A large part of why I prefer Obama to Hillary lies in the fact that he's an Ivy League-educated, relatively laid-back, liberal-leaning black man. Like me.

"This is our moment! We are the agents of change! Yes we can! Where the titties at?"

Lez Zeppelin takes Americans Abroad

MBV to headline 'Mile High' Democratic Convention

Hmm.

Hillary widens lead in Gallup tracker:

http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/020608DailyUpdateGraph2.gif

And remember -- she's NOT the establishment candidate anymore, lol, everyone on the same page, plz.

I do understand that plenty of perfectly reasonable arguments against her have been made on this thread and elsewhere..

You know, I can totally see the effect this primary has had on me and I'm pretty outspoken about politics, but the sheer avalanche of criticism from the media and on every politics site gets exhausting, especially when some of it is personal and vicious - and it is - much more so than for the other candidates. After a while the impulse is to just tune out, let the conversation go on without you, and vote for her anyway. But if that's how the atmosphere is, I think it could be a lot harder to stand up at a caucus than in the privacy of a voting booth, now.

wau, xp

lol at you guys needing to explain again to daria why you hate/don't hate hillary.

A large part of why I prefer Obama to Hillary lies in the fact that he's an Ivy League-educated, relatively laid-back, liberal-leaning black man. Like me.

"This is our moment! We are the agents of change! Yes we can! Where the titties at?"

-- Pleasant Plains, Wednesday, February 6, 2008 10:26 PM

t/s lol vs. O_o

A large part of why I prefer Obama to Hillary lies in the fact that he's an Ivy League-educated, relatively laid-back, liberal-leaning black man. Like me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:James_Toofer_Spurlock_from_30_Rock.jpg

Ah, fuck it.

http://l.yimg.com/img.tv.yahoo.com/tv/us/img/site/27/89/0000042789_20070911163124.jpg

ouch that poll! people like a winner, i guess

it's okay because hillary doesn't pay attention to polls

errr, that's a worrying poll.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0208/Unlike_Mark_Penn.html

Imho, all of these candidates have limited vision and excessive corporate connections and until this country realizes that it's democracy is reeling towards plutocracy at a dizzying pace and puts real, meaningful, maybe amend-the-Constitution limits on the money in politics, that's what we're going to get, but I have a certain sympathy for the Clinton/Blair argument that keeping your hands perfectly clean while your opponent is ammassing a warchest is equivalent to saying, "No, I don't need any armor. Armor is what has made the sport of jousting as dull and unmanly as it is to-gahhhhhhh, ugggghh!" Politics, perhaps in a democracy as much as any society, is a reflection of that society as a whole and let's not flinch to much at the reflection our candidated are casting upon the people. Let's not be so appalled and ashamed that we become impotent in the process. I don't mean to say we should cut any corner or condone any skullduggery but I don't want to end so squeamish and prissy that I end up, however distantly, in the demise of a woman's right to choose (i.e., privacy rights), or the de facto end of habeas corpus, or a zillion other things that the Repubs will never fully account for on their own.

yeah but the news going into last night was that hillary "won" super tuesday, but now its a lot closer.

xxxxp

I couldn't vote in the primary, but I lean towards Obama because his speeches, books, and bearing suggest levelheadednes. Not for a second do I think he's a pacifist, though. Quite the contrary: something in his determination suggests that he could handle a conflict that takes years of continued US military might.

Plus, let's remember our history: you don't get to be a "great" president without a major conflict, and if there's one thing -- the only thing -- that Obama's got in common with JFK, it' san angling for greatness.

My mom called me to say that she cried while voting for Hills yesterday.

aw

ice cold, hoos

naw dude for srs!